/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2718629]

>I have met with you, bird, too late, or if not, too worm and early: and with tag for ildiot in his secondmouth language as many of the bigtimer’s verbaten words which he could balbly call to memory that same kveldeve, ere teh hour of the twattering of bards in the twitterlitter between Druidia and the Deepsleep Sea, when suppertide and souvenir to Charlatan Mall jointly kem gently along the quiet darkenings of Grand and Royal, ff, flitmansfluh, and, kk, ‘t crept i’ hedge whenas to many a softongue’s pawkytalk mude unswer u sufter poghyogh

Seriously, people. You've been fucking trolled.

[Anonymous No.2718635]

this sentiment is so new, and the way you put it is so convincing

why don't you go get yourself a real opinion on something and post about it, or better yet, just fucking kill yourself and raise the world's iq a few points.

[Anonymous No.2718660]

>>2718635

[Anonymous No.2718685]

So someone explain why this isn't just a huge joke at the expense of literary pretension.

[Anonymous No.2718696]

>>2718685
because pretention

Joyce is so inaccessible that to read him is to be a part of a club; meanwhile there is a greater club of understanding Joyce which thousands seek to enter, believing that within there is some sort of literary nirvana, the apex of human thought and creativity.

On a meta level, his work is a striking example of the ways in which ambition functions; it deludes and destroys and ultimately jades more often than it does good.

[Anonymous No.2718702]

>>2718696

>pretention

yeah, right. wait no, you're a cunt.

[Anonymous No.2718737]

>>2718696
Lord in heaven, just shut the fuck up. You have the most overtly pretentious diction I've ever seen.

I've never even bothered reading Finnegans Wake, because as I focus mainly on Russian and German literature, I know next to nothing about Irish mythology and all the rest of the things Joyce alludes to. I could look it up as I read, certainly. But I'd prefer to dedicate my time to other pursuits.

[soedgy No.2718753]

Don't try and understand Finnegans Wake, it is intentionally nonsensical.
Just read it when you're tired and you want words to pass through your head like images pass over you in a dream.

[Anonymous No.2718770]

"nothing but a formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book, a persistent snore in the next room [...] and only the infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations redeem it from utter insipidity."

- Nabokov on Finnegans Wake.

[Anonymous No.2718774]

>>2718770
Nabokov confirmed for pleb.

[soedgy No.2718777]

>>2718770
pleeeeeeeeeeebian

[Anonymous No.2718836]

>>2718774
>>2718777

lel

[Anonymous No.2718840]

>>2718777
>>2718774
>>2718737
>>2718702
but why are you mad? You've offered nothing to counter the argument except "HURR SPELLING ERRORS" and "HURR CANON"

[Anonymous No.2718848]

>>2718774
>>2718777
>>2718836

[Anonymous No.2718855]

>>2718848

Hey leave me out of it - I was just responding to those tards thinking Nabokov is a pleb.

lel

[Anonymous No.2718864]

"My God, what a clumsy olla putrida James Joyce is! Nothing but old fags and cabbage-stumps of quotations from the Bible and the rest, stewed in the juice of deliberate journalistic dirty-mindedness – what old and hard-worked staleness, masquerading as the all-new!"

- D.H. Lawrence

[Anonymous No.2718873]

>>2718864
D. H. Lawrence confirmed for pleb.

[Anonymous No.2718890]

ITT: Joyce dickriders once again fail to provide any arguments and appeal to a sense of unwarranted superiority.

I genuinely don't believe any of you have even read this shit.

[soedgy No.2718896]

>>2718890
whoah, back up lads, looks like we've got ourselves another plebeian.

[Anonymous No.2718901]

>A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

*SOBBING* SO BEAUTIFUL

[Anonymous No.2718905]

>>2718901
>sleepily
>obliquely
>softly
>slowly
>faintly

Joyce confirmed for shit

[soedgy No.2718907]

>>2718901
Is that Dubliners?

Joyce is overrated.
Proust is better everybody, time to go home.

[soedgy No.2718915]

>>2718905
adverbs aren't inherently shit, I bet it's those Creative Writing professors who tell their students that they're shit because they're so often abused by verbose tryhards.

[Anonymous No.2718920]

>>2718905
>hurr durr adverbs bad terse writing good oof oof me second hemingway

[Anonymous No.2718921]

>>2718901

That's pretty awful. And this thread is about Finnegans Wake, not Dubliners.

Confirmed that nobody can offer a serious argument in favour of The Wake.

[Anonymous No.2718922]

I'd recommend reading some criticism and analysis of the book if you're interested in understanding why a lot of people like it.

[soedgy No.2718928]

>>2718920

[Anonymous No.2718929]

>>2718905
Just finished your first CW class huh?

[Anonymous No.2718935]

>>2718915
>implying Joyce isn't a verbose tryhard

YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP

[Anonymous No.2718941]

>>2718935
I doubt he tried very hard, honestly.

[Anonymous No.2718939]

>>2718935

[Anonymous No.2718942]

>>2718929
>>2718920
>>2718915
>adverbs are generally unneeded, but when Joyce uses them, they're obviously genius!

you guys gotta be kidding me

[Anonymous No.2718948]

>>2718935
>>2718941
He was not verbose to an excessive degree and he tried very hard and succeeded phenomenally.

[soedgy No.2718952]

>>2718942
>adverbs are generally unneeded,

That's what I'm saying, they aren't "generally unneeded". They CAN be good.
I agree that it wasn't good here though.

[Blackbear !kySZvIxYHA No.2718953]

>>2718629
To get the authors intention, and meaning, of such a passage one must read it in the context of which it was formed. The surrounding chapter must be discussed in context of this sentence of brevity.

But, prima facie, he is personifying the birds actions and relating it to a human meeting. He is also alluding to the time setting when the meeting takes place.

[Anonymous No.2718954]

>>2718942
Sometimes adverbs are used poorly. This is not one of those times.

[Anonymous No.2718955]

>>2718922

It's amazing how often people say that, and yet can never offer any opinion of their own, or any evidence that they've read any criticism themself. In fact it's almost like they're pretending to like something they know nothing about because they think it makes them seem more avant-garde.

[Anonymous No.2718958]

>>2718955
I think liking Joyce is more aprés-garde than anything.

[Anonymous No.2718959]

>>2718941
it took him 17 years to write Finnegan's Wake, you THICK FUCK

[Anonymous No.2718960]

>>2718948
>He was not verbose to an excessive degree

>verbose: characterized by the use of many or too many words; wordy:
>Ulysses uses a lexicon of 30,030 words

[Anonymous No.2718962]

>>2718955
>more avant-garde

lol be more incoherent plz

[Anonymous No.2718963]

>>2718955
Haven't read the book. Just giving some advice.

[Anonymous No.2718965]

>>2718959
>Write shit
>Say it took a long time

He tried so hard
And got so far

[Anonymous No.2718966]

>>2718960
And it uses them well. Derp.

[Anonymous No.2718970]

>>2718966
Sure, but verbose can mean "the use of many words." Ergo he is verbose. It isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[Anonymous No.2718972]

Why do people get so indignant over Joyce?

[Anonymous No.2718969]

>>2718966
As Joyce would say, "Your fnyting is a lessaloo betwixt a plinx and sphinx."

[Anonymous No.2718976]

>>2718970
Yeah. I know you're being a pedantic autist. No one cares.

[soedgy No.2718977]

>>2718972
Honestly, as a good, upright Englishman -- fuck the Irish. Fuck them.

[Anonymous No.2718984]

>>2718965
He tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end he wasn't as good as Proust

[Anonymous No.2718986]

>>2718977
>dat english obsession

[Anonymous No.2718990]

>>2718976
Learn how to think and come back then.

[Anonymous No.2718997]

So, anyone got any arguments as to why Joyce's Finnegan's Wake is so great?

I mean actual textual analysis?

[soedgy No.2719003]

>>2718997
>I mean actual textual analysis?

lol fuck off, where do you think you are?

[Anonymous No.2719007]

>>2718997
No one has actually read Finnegan's Wake

[Anonymous No.2719010]

>>2718997
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Exagmination_Round_His_Factification_for_Incamination_of_Work_in_Pr
ogress

[Anonymous No.2719012]

>>2718997
Try those books by Joseph Campbell and Anthony Burgess on Joyce. You might find them useful.

[Anonymous No.2719020]

>>2718977
Indeed. I find it amazing that anyone would want to study the ravings of a bognigger.

[Anonymous No.2719027]

>>2719003

Surrounded by liars and intellectual cowardice, apparently.

[soedgy No.2719035]

>>2719027
>intellectual cowardice

nah, just regular laziness.

[Björk's Stalker !!mvAQlgDKGwt No.2719036]

No one on this board or in this thread has the relevant understanding or life time to form a genuine sincere opinion on why Finnegans Wake is good from a literary standpoint, for all anyone knows it may objectively be the worst book written.

I'm sure that most people here have read Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist, and possibly some have read Ulysses (and obtained a reasonable grasp of it), their only basis for praising the Wake is through extrapolation from the high quality of the three preceding works.

[Blackbear !kySZvIxYHA No.2719091]

>>2719036
>Objective standpoint
>Novels

Alright then, now that we've discovered why you're a retard I shall extend to give a SUBJECTIVE view.

From the death of Finnegan (Finn McCool) Ireland is now in it's Wake (aftermath of a death - post funeral). This is shown by a modern day Irish family, with poor HCE tantelising faults discovered. When this is discovered he is betrayed by the Irish people and villified until his eventual death.
The remainder of the book jumps around a fair bit between the four main 'chapters'. This is why you'll see reference to an otherwise forgoten character later in the book. However, after HCE's death, Joyce focuses on the remainder of the family in correlation to the great Irish tales.

For instance, ALP's hardship in the Wake of her husband, and his twins struggle as being 2 halves of a whole. This is also representative of ireland, it has now (after the death of finnegan) become less and less pure for each generation by splitting in two for every generation.

Despite this, the novel is in a cyclical model because the greatness that Ireland once was will surely come again - however, witnessed by the gods before the humans.

[Anonymous No.2719117]

>>2719091

Well, you're entitled to your subjective opinion, but that's bullshit.

[Blackbear !kySZvIxYHA No.2719129]

>>2719117
You're an idiot, you don't even offer a statement to rebutt my argument. How about you start by reading the book, and then you'll see that it's not bullshit - granted it is open to interpretation.

So give me YOUR interpretation when you've read it, champ.

I have, of course, sacrificed accuracy for brevity

[Anonymous No.2719137]

>>2719129
>I have, of course, sacrificed accuracy for brevity

This is why people need to read c r i t i c i s m.

[Blackbear !kySZvIxYHA No.2719158]

>>2719137
Another retard in our presence. By that accuracy statement I made, it means it's quite difficult to summarize a dense book into a single post - if that's not obvious then you're just stupid or childish, or both.

[Anonymous No.2719164]

>>2719129
>>2719129

I've already given it: I think that Joyce was writing gibberish to prove that the literary salons would basically accept anything as part of the modernist experiment.

If I wanted to force some kind of framework onto it I'd say that Joyce was attempting to provide a book which gave the experience of a dream, and an artwork which could be analysed with the same tools as are used in dream analysis. I would say that he's attempting to use non-literary techniques drawn from music and painting to provide a more subjective experience, I'd say it's a fractal text, revealing layers of meaning in surprising ways and that the act of engaging with Finnegans Wake is actually closer to the act of dancing than that of reading, since it's a subconscious experience.

That's the kind of stuff I wrote when I was studying Joyce at university, but I had to say that to get through. I now think it was a massive troll. Ulysses was the last serious book Joyce wrote, and The Wake was him and Beckett getting bladdered in the dead of night and trying to write the most nonsense they could.

I started re-reading it last week and I'm about 400 pages in and just can't believe I ever finished this garbage.

[Blackbear !kySZvIxYHA No.2719213]

>>2719164
That's a pretty close-minded argument to assume that just because a book is written with unconventional frameworks that it is somehow not worth merit - or a troll as you put it. He worked on the book from 1923-1939, I think on that assumption it must be more than just plain illiterate gibberish.

However, to allude on the facts, the dream consists of multiple languages but does not leave Ireland - this is because it is assumed knowledge. He does not place a word in that book for unintentional reasons. Every word, every sentence, and every passage must be analysed as a whole - not as a singular. From this, we can discover the dream actually has some intention to show modern Ireland through the eyes of a family in desolate times after the death of it's great hero Finnegan.

Finnegans Wake far surpassed any other novel he wrote, including Ulysses, to the point it was so penetrating in meaning that many could spend hours analysing a single page.

[Anonymous No.2719218]

>>2719213
he never said its defiance of frameworks in and of itself proved his point, those two things were not related

>I think on that assumption it must be more than just plain illiterate gibberish.
wouldn't this work the opposite way? it'd make it a better troll. a really, really good troll.

[Anonymous No.2719220]

>>2719158
Hey buddy, thanks for explaining exactly why I'm right. Shut the fuck up, dumbass.

[Anonymous No.2719224]

>>2719213
See, you're terrible at explaining shit in the first place, so why are you even bothering? Leave it to the experts: actual critics.

[Anonymous No.2719230]

>>2719224
>he thinks critics know anything

[Blackbear !kySZvIxYHA No.2719265]

>>2719218
>>2719220

>I offer evidence on /lit/ to support argument
>Get called dumbass
>Guy calling me dumbass offers no evidence and just swears and bitches until he's heard.
>Clearly a spoilt child with limited education
>probably hasn't read Finnegans Wake

This is why we can't have nice things.

[Anonymous No.2719271]

>>2719265
You can't expect better from people who hate Joyce. They're just bitter fools.

[Blackbear !kySZvIxYHA No.2719295]

>>2719271
But it really rustles my jimmies when they talk about Joyce in a negative tone when they've never even bothered to read his works.

Also, it bothers me when they've read one wikipedia article on one of his works or have read a simple analysis without reading the book and assume they know everything about the work and Joyce.
It's just ignorance at it's worst - but this consumes 95% of /lit/ so why bother fighting it.

[Anonymous No.2719334]

"Finnegans Wake is a concatenation of puns committed in a dreamlike English that is difficult not to categorize as frustrated and incompetent. I don’t think that I am exaggerating. Ameise, in German, means “ant.” Joyce, in Work in Progress, combines it with the English amazing to coin the adjective ameising, meaning the wonder inspired by an ant. Here is another example, perhaps less lugubrious. Joyce fuses the English words banister and star into a single word, banistar, that combines both images.

Jules Laforgue and Lewis Carroll have played this game with better luck." - Borges

[Anonymous No.2719350]

>>2719295
yeah, joyce sucks, face it brah. He was too verbose and couldn't actually write either decent prose or a decent plot. He's the literary equivalent of a shit four day long saxophone solo.

[Anonymous No.2719360]

It would have been far more successful if it had been recorded by Joyce himself. The bits of him reading excerpts on Youtube are incredibly helpful.

[Anonymous No.2719722]

>>2719360

>It would have been far more successful if it had been recorded by Joyce himself.

mfw I momentarily thought this referred to the sax solo

[Anonymous No.2719731]

>>2719722
shouldn't that pic be "'avin a bubble?"

[Anonymous No.2719732]

>>2719722
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQtlrBziyzI

[Anonymous No.2719752]

I like this thread.

Finally critically flushing out the poser-roaches (even though they don't warrant that kind of consideration or respect).